Housing and the storage business

Mr. Akira Sugawara
Yano Research Institute Ltd.

No. 1 What is the storage business?
No. 2 Macro Trends in the Population/Number of Households and Expansion of Storage Service Users
No. 3 Housing and the storage business
No. 4 Rental storage and container storage
No. 5 Market trends in rental storage
No. 6 Market trends in container storage
No. 7 Storage business as real estate business
No. 8 Storage business seen from map data
No. 9 Storage business seen from survey results
No.10 Storage business potential going forward

Japan’s housing situation

apanese homes are generally said to be smaller than homes in the West. Comparing statistics on home sizes from various countries shows that American homes are overwhelmingly the largest, but that Japanese and European homes are not so different in size that we should feel inferior. (Depending on the statistics of different countries, however, there are differences in the way average floor areas are calculated, and in the figures compared such as averages for new buildings only or averages for housing stock.)

[Average floor area per home in new housing of various countries]

(From the Statistics Bureau, MIC website)

The trends in average floor area of new homes in Japan are shown in the following graph. Predictably, to some extent, custom-built houses are the largest followed by houses built for sale, apartments built for sale, and rented homes, with custom-built houses being more than twice the size of rented homes. Looking at the trends in size over time, we can see that they have remained almost the same. Comparisons with slightly older data show that the floor area per home has increased, but in recent years there is no trend toward bigger homes. Factors behind this include a fall in the number of household members per dwelling unit (due to the growth of the nuclear family, declining birthrate, etc.) and an increase in urban mini-developments where one large lot is subdivided into smaller lots on which multiple new homes are built and sold.
Because there is already a lot of housing stock (existing homes) and an increase in choice of homes, whether to buy or rent, the trend toward size in new homes is likely to remain constant in future. (The latest trend is toward downsizing due to the increase in consumption tax and sharp rise in building costs.)

(Created by Yano Research Institute from statistics on building construction starts)

• Average floor area of privately built houses (commonly called custom-built houses) Close to 140 m2 in 1995 and 2000, but then dropped below 130 ㎡
• Average floor area of houses built for sale (commonly called ready-built houses) Looking at the past 15 years, remained almost unchanged between 102 and 106 ㎡
• Average floor area of apartments built for sale (excluding those built mainly for renting out)
  *Average floor area including communal areas, not average exclusive floor area per dwelling unit
  Exceeded 90 m2 in 2000 but later dropped to the 80 m2 or more range
• Average floor area of rented homes (commonly called rented apartments)
  *Average floor area including communal areas, not average exclusive floor area per dwelling unit
  Nearly always around the 50 m2 mark

Trends in average floor area by prefecture

Needless to say, we can easily assume that average floor areas are smaller in urban areas and larger in suburbs and the countryside. The top five prefectures in terms of average floor area per custom-built house are in the Tohoku region (on the Japan Sea side) and Hokuriku region. The bottom five include Tokyo, Kanagawa and Kyoto, as anyone would imagine, but surprisingly there is also a trend for building compact houses in the southern Kyushu prefectures of Kagoshima and Miyazaki.
It is difficult to find any connection between the top five prefectures in terms of average floor area per rented home, namely, Okinawa, Nagano, Nara, Oita and Hokkaido, but the bottom five, Tokyo, Kanagawa, Kyoto, Saitama and Osaka, are all densely populated urban areas.

[Average floor area of new custom-built houses in 2012]

Top 10

Prefecture	Custom houses
Fukui	143.20
Toyama	142.03
Yamagata	140.95
Niigata	133.11
Akita	133.07
Miyagi	132.81
Aomori	132.52
Ishikawa	132.25
Hokkaido	130.70
Saga	130.63

Bottom 10

Prefecture	Custom houses
Saitama	120.73
Chiba	120.63
Yamaguchi	119.91
Okinawa	119.35
Kochi	118.45
Miyazaki	118.39
Tokyo	118.02
Kyoto	116.93
Kanagawa	116.60
Kagoshima	114.41

[Average floor area of rented homes in 2012 ]

Top 10

Prefecture	Rented
Okinawa	60.17
Nagano	58.69
Nara	58.00
Oita	57.59
Hokkaido	57.52
Nagasaki	57.29
Mie	57.06
Aichi	57.03
Tottori	56.94
Tokushima	56.51

Bottom 10

Prefecture	Rented
Hyogo	51.17
Yamaguchi	50.28
Kagoshima	50.00
Niigata	49.44
Chiba	48.92
Osaka	48.30
Saitama	47.88
Kyoto	46.10
Kanagawa	46.08
Tokyo	44.44

Floor area trends and storage services (rental storage, container storage, trunk rooms)
Comparing trends in home size and in the number of storage service rooms (number of rental spaces) as counted by Yano Research Institute, half of the top ten prefectures in terms of “average floor area of new custom-built houses in 2012” were in the bottom ten prefectures in terms of available storage services. Conversely, half of the bottom ten in “average floor area of new custom-built houses in 2012” were in the top ten in available storage services. Of the top ten prefectures with the most storage services, seven ranked in the bottom ten in “average floor area of rented homes in 2012,” but of the bottom ten prefectures in available storable storage services, only one ranked in the top ten in “average floor area of rented homes in 2012.”
By seeking out the need for storage services from the perspective of home size in this way, we can read a hypothesis that storage services are required in areas where residential floor space is smaller or rented homes are more numerous, that is, areas where there are many older rented homes.
We have tried using general macro-style data, but what about looking at the “face” of a town or community, not only the size of its population, in thinking about storage services?

[Number of storage service rooms (rental storage, container storage, trunk rooms) by prefecture]

Top 10

Prefecture	No. of storage spaces
Tokyo	104,462
Kanagawa	54,259
Saitama	43,141
Osaka	33,571
Chiba	21,118
Aichi	20,506
Hyogo	15,854
Fukuoka	10,017
Shizuoka	6,178
Kyoto	5,393

Bottom 10

Prefecture	No. of storage spaces
Toyama	309
Iwate	256
Kochi	240
Yamagata	203
Yamanashi	144
Saga	127
Yamaguchi	117
Fukui	71
Tottori	66
Akita	40